Medical research has demonstrated the importance of maintaining adequate hydration while engaging in strenuous physical activities, such as bicycling or mountain climbing. In the not too distant past, participants in such activities carried their water in bottles or canteens from which they drank periodically. More recently, personal hydration systems have been developed which allow users to drink more or less continuously while engaged in sporting or recreational activities. These personal hydration systems typically have a bag-like fluid reservoir that is carried in a back- or waist-mounted pack. A long flexible hose is connected to the reservoir through an exit port at one end and terminates in a mouthpiece at the other end. The hose is long enough to allow the mouthpiece to be carried in the user's mouth to enable the user to draw water from the reservoir at will. Examples of these hydration systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,727,714, 5,060,833 and 5,085,349, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Although personal hydration systems have proven to be a great advance over traditional water bottles, they do suffer from some drawbacks. In particular, it is often difficult for the user to quickly draw an acceptable flow of water from the reservoir. It should be understood that every breath the user spends drawing fluid from the reservoir is one less breath that can be used to deliver oxygen to the user's body. Therefore, there is a need for a mouthpiece that is capable of delivering an increased flow of fluid over conventional mouthpieces, which generally require multiple breaths to be used to draw a sufficient amount of fluid from the system.
Furthermore, it is desirable for the mouthpiece not to leak when in a closed position and to remain comfortably in a ready-to-use position in the user's mouth, even when not being used to dispense fluids. Simply scaling the size of conventional mouthpieces has not solved the flowrate problem because the enlarged designs tend to leak fluid when they should otherwise be in a closed position. This not only diminishes the user's fluid supply, but also leaks fluid onto the user and other surrounding objects.
The present invention is a personal hydration system with an improved mouthpiece. The mouthpiece includes a neck that is coupled to the supply tube of a hydration system and adapted to receive a flow of fluid therefrom. The neck is joined to a resilient head that is adapted to be received within a user's mouth and which preferably is of larger cross-section than the neck. The head includes a dispensing face with a pair of lips that form a normally closed slit through which fluid is selectively dispensed from the mouthpiece. From a closed position in which the lips extend against each other to close the slit and prevent fluid from being dispensed through the slit, the mouthpiece is deformable to a dispensing position in which the lips are spread at least partially away from each other to allow fluid to be dispensed through the lips. The face has a perimeter and a minimum dimension between opposed points on the perimeter. From the perimeter, a bite region extends to a lip-receiving shoulder that tapers to the neck. Typically, the mouthpiece is placed in the user's mouth so that the user's lips extend around the neck portion and against the lip-receiving shoulder to retain the mouthpiece in the user's mouth. In this position, the user's teeth are positioned to bite down upon the bite region to deform the mouthpiece to the dispensing position and thereby enable fluid to be dispensed to the user. The mouthpiece is adapted to selectively deliver of fluid at a flowrate greater than presently available through known mouthpieces.
Many other features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description which follows and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which preferred embodiments incorporating the principles of this invention are disclosed as illustrative examples only.